The first Macs with Apple Silicon are very impressive machines. But, in the shift from Intel chips to Apple’s own ARM processors, what happens to Windows software on a Mac? Does Boot Camp still work? Here’s everything you need to know.
What Does Native Apple Silicon Support Mean?
Apr 17, 2021, 8:00 am EDT
| 2 min read
In late 2020, Apple released several Macs that use the new Apple Silicon architecture. You may have heard that not all Mac software “natively” supports Apple Silicon yet. But what does that mean?
Native Software Runs Faster
Software that is “native” to a certain computer system has been written especially for that type of computer (otherwise known as an “architecture”). Native is a relative term. If software is non-native, it was created for another type of computer than the one you’re using.
Normally, a computer can’t run non-native software. But there are special software tools called emulators, virtual machines, and binary translators that can help the process along by translating code between architectures on the fly as you run the software. This allows non-native software to run as translated or emulated software, with few or no preparations needed by the software developer.